Tesla would build a phone if Apple or Google became gatekeepers

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 1:33:12

   Contacted you about this before but there's always these fucking YouTube videos where they're talking about a Tesla phone that releasing a Tesla phone No, we're not just doing it. Have you ever thought about it? I mean we could do a phone since like Like the operating system in Tesla, it's Linux-based, but we've written a massive amount of software on top of that. So probably Tesla is in a better position to create a new phone that's not Android or iPhone than maybe any company in the world.

2. 1:33:37

   But it's not something we want to do unless we have to or something. What would be the situation where you would have to? Well, I think if, you know, if Apple and Google slash Android, you know, started doing really bad things like, I don't know, like censorship of apps or, I don't know, just treating people, like just being like gatekeepers, you know, that in a really bad way, then I guess we'd make a phone.

3. 1:34:07

   Hmm. You know, I've tried so many times to break loose of the Apple ecosystem. I got an Android phone this summer. I was like, that's it. because I love the Samsung phones, the Galaxy phone. The hardware is great. They're incredible. There's so much good stuff to it. But it's so hard to get off of the iMessage. And the big one for me was FaceTime because supposedly the thing was you could have an Apple phone and send a link to FaceTime to an Android phone, and then you would click on that link, and you would just go to a web page.

4. 1:34:40

   You'd be able to use FaceTime. Okay. It doesn't work. Okay. I try to do it to myself. So I had an iPhone in one hand, an Android phone in the other, and I'm sitting there with full Wi-Fi and full cell phone service, and I'm sending myself invitations for FaceTime. So you just can't communicate between – you can't do a video call basically. You have to use WhatsApp. You have to use WhatsApp or Signal.

5. 1:34:59

   You have to use something else that allows you to do that or Instagram allows you to do it. There's like different ways you can make video calls outside of it. inconvenient like with an iphone to iphone it's so simple airdrop so simple so many different things where that walled garden that apple's created is perfect they've done a fantastic job of making it really convenient for you to stay with apple yeah i fucking tried i gave it a go for like a couple of months i'm like i'm just gonna go straight android we're gonna i'm gonna use signal for my messages and then i hear that like signals might be compromised like i've talked to like people that like the government can read signal messages like oh the government if it tries hard enough can read single messages they can read anything yeah if all they need to do is have your

6. 1:35:42

   phone number yeah yeah you the illusion of privacy is essentially out the window and uh that's that should scare people more than it does it really should because it's like who are these people that have access to all this stuff and are they beyond reproach are these the most wonderful people the most ethical moral and principled people that have ever existed and they've been chosen to have access no no it's fucking regular people yeah regular people who happen to work for the government that make a decision like elon must let's look see what the fuck that guy's texting his friends let's check it out yeah pretty much bizarre just so bizarre and the alternatives are you can get some wacky phone some de-googled phone that fucking none of The apps work.

7. 1:36:27

   It's real sketchy. Your GPS is fucked. Yeah, I mean, well, anyway, I think this banking phone would be a huge pain in the ass. So it can't be done. But how much talk have you guys had internally about doing it? Has it ever been discussed? No? No. I mean, we're still – our focus is making great electric cars, solving autonomy so the cars can drive themselves. We're building, you know, human-rate robots.

8. 1:36:56

   We've got large battery packs, like utility-scale battery packs with the mega pack, home battery packs with Powerwall, we've got solar. You know, it's like we're basically trying to solve sustainable energy and autonomy. Autonomy and robotics. Well, I think that's enough. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the plate's full, is what I'm saying. It's always fascinating to me how one company can dominate a market.